


Nick and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Aunt

by SpacePancake



Series: Dndads and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Extended Family (collection) [2]
Category: Dungeons and Daddies (Podcast)
Genre: Gen, glenn is just grumpy for the entire fic, here’s what you need to know about del: she’s hot and she’s kind of an asshole, let me give glenn a hot older sister, the new family member isnt transphobic in this one this time dw
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-25
Updated: 2021-01-24
Packaged: 2021-03-06 15:27:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 8,820
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26111122
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SpacePancake/pseuds/SpacePancake
Summary: “Nick doesn’t know the woman standing at the door, but he could swear he does.”A one-shot in which Glenn’s estranged older sister comes back into his life and they try to make things work.
Relationships: glenn & his sister (oc), nick & his aunt (oc), nick close & glenn close
Series: Dndads and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Extended Family (collection) [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1895239
Comments: 15
Kudos: 31





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> she’s not perfect,,, but I love Del very much okay 🥺👉👈

Nick 

Nick doesn’t know the woman standing at the door, but he could swear he does. There’s something familiar about the way she holds herself and the shape of her jaw and the hair that’s really more dark brown than black and looks as if it hadn’t been brushed in a few days. The hair is cut short and choppy and is subtly streaked with grey, and that’s really the only big indication of her age because her eyes are hidden behind simple black sunglasses.

She’s wrapped up in a leather jacket that’s three times her size, but it does nothing to diminish the effect of the height she has over him. If anything, it makes her look bigger. It hides away her more slim physique so that she appears more square and wide.

“I’m looking for Glenn Close.” Is the first thing she says, and Nick somehow gets the feeling that she’s unimpressed with him despite there being no way she could know anything about him before now.

“Is he under arrest?” Nick asks. He doesn’t really believe his dad would do anything bad enough to warrant it, but the woman has a certain authoritative energy to her.

She raises a dark eyebrow above the rim of her sunglasses. “Should he be?”

“No.”

“Then no.” Her face returns to its original neutral expression and she shoves her hands in her jacket pockets.

“So, what the fuck do you want then?”

“Jesus fuck, you’re some mouthy brat.” She says mostly to herself. She holds out a hand. “Close.”

Nick waits a moment before he does, but returns the gesture and shakes her hand. Her grip is way too tight for comfort. “Yeah,” he says, “And who are you?”

She releases his hand and her own returns to her pocket.“No, that was me. Del Close, P.I. You’re Glenn’s son, I’m guessing?”

It’s a weird coincidence, especially when Del looks quite a bit like the Close boys herself when Nick really thinks about it. Maybe too weird to be an actual coincidence when he thinks it over again.

“What’s it to you?”

“Quite a fucking bit considering I’m his sister.”

Nick looks her up and down, trying to be as clear as possible about his suspicion. He can definitely _see_ the resemblance. The way her hair falls across her face and the shape of her eyes and even the way she _stands_ with everything perfect and cool-looking despite the untidy appearance and in a way that makes it seem like an accident. 

But Nick has been alive for several years at this point and at no time during those years did he ever meet any Del Close or even hear her mentioned _once._

Top of his list is ‘alien’ and ‘botched clone of his dad’, but he has no real substantial evidence towards anything yet.

“Yeah,” he says, “I’m gonna need to see some ID.”

She doesn’t react physically whatsoever, but her voice drops a tone lower. “What.”

“ID. Show it to me.”

She doesn’t move for another moment but then she’s rummaging around in her large jacket pockets until she finds a plastic card to throw Nick’s way. 

“Happy?”

He takes the driver’s license and holds it up so he can match the faces. They certainly _look_ the same at first glance, but Nick takes his sweet time comparing each facial feature.

The license doesn’t say ‘Del’, it says ‘Arabella’. Not _completely_ surprising that Del wasn’t her full legal name, and the small detail made things more convincing too.

At some point she starts muttering under her breath something he can’t make out. It isn’t until at least three minutes have passed that she glares at Nick and lets out a short huff. “You done?”

“I suppose…” He hands her back the card and takes out his phone. “One moment.”

She says something in return but Nick can’t quite make it out and he’s pretty sure it wasn’t for his ears anyway.

> Dad B) 

> your sisters here dude

**Dad B):** the fuck

> you have one right?

**Dad B):** unfortunately 

**Dad B):** fuuuck

 **Dad B):** you check her id?

> ofc

> ‘arabella?’

**Dad B):** shit

> alien??

**Dad B):** god i wish

 **Dad B):** I don’t think I’m that lucky man

 **Dad B):** you can let her in if you want to. no big threat. but also feel free to kick her ass to the curb, dude. One of the kids called in sick anyway so i’ll be back from lessons in like, an hour?

> lit

> she says shes a PI

**Dad B):** ew professional narc

> right?

**Dad B):** she wanted to be a ghost hunter when she was a kid i’m pretty sure. what went so wrong lmao

> lol

> so why did you not like, mention her? ever

**Dad B):** never came up

> understandable

* * *

Del 

The kid finally looks up from his phone and gives her another calculating look over.

“You can come inside, but dad won’t be back for an hour.”

It’s not ideal. Signing up to talk to Glenn again wasn’t the same as having to deal with his kid for an hour by herself. Luckily, he seems to have the same feelings towards her. So, after giving her instructions not to touch anything or go into any of the rooms, he quickly disappears into one of said rooms and she’s left to her own devices.

She’s looking over everything that the eye can see. There’s a lot of photos, first of all. The Close family never had any photos up in her time. They’re mostly all of Glenn and Nick, but a few involve some other kids and parents she didn’t have names for. There’s one woman in particular that looks as much like Nick as Glenn does and only appears in photos from a long time ago judging by the different ages of whichever Close boy she appears beside. Del knows about Morgan, of course, surface level research had to be done on her brother before she decided it was time to actually talk to him. Still, she takes out her notebook and scribbles down the fact that photos of her are still hanging up.

There isn’t too much of note, but she writes down everything anyway. It helps her process things.

The games under the table are as follows: Clue, Scrabble, Trivial Pursuit — Disney, a pack of cards, Uno, Cards Against Humanity, 221B Baker Street — The Sherlock Holmes Master Detective Game. She never pinned her brother as a board games kind of person, but she never pinned him as a dad kind of person either.

The music collection he’s amassed is mostly what she expects to see, Glenn’s taste hasn’t changed much from what it was as a kid. The overabundance of Christmas music is a little jarring though. The only thing that truly stands out is ‘Rocks Rock’ which is accredited to Henry ‘Professor’ Oak and seems to be a geology based album targeted at kids. Right beside it is ‘Rocks Rock 2: A Christmas Themed Geology Rap/Rock Album’ presented by Henry ‘Professor’ Oak ft. Darryln Glen. Niche taste in the Close household.

Once she’s looked around the place and noted a few other things, she heads to the small balcony outside the apartment’s sitting room. The whole place stinks of weed, but she’s not sure if cigarette smoke is welcome in the place or not yet. With the way their mom went, she wouldn’t be all too surprised if it’s a touchy subject.

She sits on the small chair on the balcony and smokes until Glenn arrives home. She’s pretty good at waiting, she’s a goddamn PI after all.

Glenn nearly slams open the glass doors to the balcony when he comes outside. He sits down across from her, the table’s tiny, and his legs are bouncing. Her cigarette was put out a couple of minutes ago, but it’s still slightly smoldering where she left it on the table and Glenn eyes it with a wrinkled nose before he looks at her.

“What the fuck?” He asks.

She gives him a short half-smile and leans back into her chair. “Nice to see you again.”

He’s not looking at her anymore, trying to peer through the glass door inside instead. “Can’t say the same.”

She hums in response.

“Why are you here?” He asks.

“Just wanted to catch up.”

“It’s been what, twenty years?”

She shrugs. “Close enough to it.”

He shakes his head. 

“Look,” she says, “I don’t expect things to be warm and fluffy, but I wanted to see you again.”

“And like, why now?”

“Would you hate me if I said relationship issues?” She asks.

He scoffs. “Is the issue you not making any relationships?”

“Something with my roommate got messy.” She shrugs. “Wanted something more familiar.”

“This doesn’t feel very familiar.” He points out.

She taps her finger against her leg and hums. “It could be.”

Glenn gets to his feet. “Look. I’ve barely seen Nick all week. Imma hang with him for a bit. We can talk later. I should really fucking talk to Henry about what it’s like to confront the dumbass pieces of your life that you tried to forget about.”

That last part is said mostly to himself.

He leaves her alone again. She keeps tapping her finger against her leg.

* * *

Glenn 

He’d fallen asleep beside Nick on the couch. The tv is still on when he wakes up, but Nick isn’t there. For a moment he feels that momentary panic that’s had a habit of creeping up on him ever since their trip to the forgotten realms. The irrational fear that Nick has been taken from him again. 

His phone has been placed in his hand by someone because he knows it was in his pocket before he went to sleep, and there’s a text waiting from Nick telling him that he’s gone out to do stuff with some of the other boys. He smiled. He was such a _good_ kid, man.

There’s another text waiting for him from the group chat that is solely comprised of him and the mothers of the other boys aptly called ‘wine moms’. It’s Merc, reminding them all about the potluck they’re all supposed to be at next Saturday at the home of Darryl’s sister.

He finds Del at the kitchen table. She’s looking between her battered phone and her even more battered notebook, occasionally writing something down. As oblivious as Glenn is to most things, he doesn’t fail to notice that all the takeout boxes that had been previously strewn across the place are all stacked in one neat pile in the corner of the room.

Del doesn’t stop writing. “Have a nice nap?” She teases. “Your kid left.”

“I noticed.”

“Surprising.”

He lets her continue writing for a moment more before he speaks again. “Can you cook?”

She pauses her writing and puts down her pen. “Why?” She looks Glenn’s way and despite how much older she is since he’d last seen her, the look in her eyes strikes a familiar chord.

“Potluck.”

Del smiles in a way that feels wicked. “Am I going to get to meet your little friends? You mentioned someone called Henry — a boyfriend?”

Glenn scrunches up his nose. “Ew, no. A friend.”

Del looks amused at the reaction she was able to get out of him and peers at her notebook, flipping back a few pages before quickly writing something down.

“Did you just… note that?” Glenn asks.

“Yeah.”

“‘kay.” Glenn replies. “So cooking?”

“I can cook.” She says, getting to her feet. Glenn follows her as she makes her way into the kitchen and begins looking around the cupboards. With each one she opens, she looks more and more disgusted. 

“Dude,” she says, “What the fuck is this?”

“Looks like fucking food, I think.”

She scoffs. “Donkey’s shit more like.” She opens the fridge for the third time. “Do you even have any eggs?”

“Why the _fuck_ would we need eggs?”

“ _Jesus,_ Glenn.” She says, and Glenn doesn’t reply.

He leans against a kitchen counter, arms crossed, while she continues her investigation. She finds the press of pots and pans next, and lets out a guttural noise of disgust as she looks further into the cupboard. 

“When was the last time you used any of this shit?” She asks. “Ten years?”

“Ha,” he replies humorlessly, “maybe.”

“If I find a spider in any of these goddamn pots I’m making you _eat_ it.”

Glenn is pretty sure that wasn’t an exaggeration. When they were kids, Glenn refusing to have a bath would lead to her dragging him outside still fully dressed and blasting him with the garden hose. One time when they were both even smaller than that, she had tied him to a chair and didn’t let him go until he finished everything that was on his dinner plate. Fond times.

She stands up and makes a show of wiping her hands on her jeans like she’s been touching muck. “Do you _ever_ eat real food?”

“Can you cook or what, man?”

“Sure, whatever.”

“Cool.”

She sits herself up on the kitchen counter. “Are we going to _talk_ now that the brat’s gone?”

“ _Don’t_ call him a brat, man.” Glenn shoots back defensively.

She rolls her eyes. “I didn’t mean it like that.”

“Don’t.”

She raises her hands in mock surrender. “Fine, fine. Won’t happen again.”

Despite the years apart, Glenn knows Del well enough to know she means it. Despite _that_ , the insult thrown at his son puts him on edge. Nick is the one thing about him that’s completely off limits.

“So, talking.” She insists.

“We’re talking now, dude.” He says.

“I guess.”

“Why did you leave?”

“ _Jeez_ , Glenn.” Her tone comes out bitter, but it’s easy to tell it isn’t directed at him. “I was _eighteen_ and had been acting like your mother on and off for fucking years. You were… you were an okay kid, I guess, but I needed to get a life. Maybe it wasn’t the fucking _best_ choice, but I needed to get out. I was just a kid. I left you the home number of the place I was staying.”

“I tore it up.” Glenn replies. It’s a lie.

“Fair enough.”

He doesn’t say anything for a while. “I thought you were coming back at first, you know? You disappeared for a few weeks before, I thought it was the same.”

“I’m back now.” She says.

“Are you?”

She doesn’t reply.

* * *

Nick 

Nick comes down the hall one morning to find pancakes on the table and the two Close siblings in the middle of an argument. 

He sits himself down in front of one of the untouched stacks and reaches for the syrup as he listens in on the conversation.

“Fahrenheit is what _everyone_ uses, Glenn. It’s more practical.”

“You say everyone like it’s not pretty much _only_ America that uses it.”

“But you _live_ in America, dipshit.”

“Fahrenheit works off fucking _feelings,_ dude. Oh, ‘I feel hot so it’s higher’. Fuck. off. Celsius is based on cold. hard. fact.” One of his hands does a small chop down into his other open palm at each punctuation mark. “Water freezes at zero and boils at one hundred. It’s simple. Do you even _know_ what temperature boiling point is at Fahrenheit?”

“Two hundred and twelve.”

“See? Dumbass number. One hundred is nice and clean.”

“It’s about the practicality of it.” She insists. “Everyone in the country uses Fahrenheit.”

“What’s _practical_ is using the same system as everyone else in the world.”

“Did you make these?” Nick interrupts, looking to Del as he takes a bite of his pancake.

They both snap their heads his way, seemingly surprised to see him there. 

“Yeah.” Del replies after a minute. “Got sick of your shitty cereal. You two eat like fucking raccoons.”

“Nick.” His dad says, and Nick gives him his attention. “Which system is better: Celsius or Fahrenheit?”

His dad is preening a little, obviously expecting Nick to take his side. Normally he would without question, but right now Nick looks between the two of them with a smile and says, “Personally, I think Kelvin is the only way to go.”

It one-hit KOs them both and while they’re shocked into silence, Nick gets back to his pancakes.

* * *

Del 

The Close siblings had been out at a bar. Del doesn’t know what possessed them to go, seeing as how they’re at each other's throats half the time, but it was strangely fun. At first. Initially Drunk Glenn just infodumped about everything and anything. It was like back when they were kids and he’d come home rambling about wombats or some shit for legitimate hours. Head wrecking, but endearing.

But now, later into the night, she finds out about Sad Drunk Glenn. Delusional Drunk Glenn as well, apparently. Rambling on about his dead wife and some made up fantasy bullshit that involved their dad? It’s honestly hard to keep track of the crap he’s spouting off, but it’s definitely a clear indicator that they need to go home.

It’s a piece of work trying to get him from the car to the house. She has to put his arm around her shoulder to keep him standing, but ends up mostly dragging him in the right direction. She’s very tempted, at one point, to just dump him on the grass and call it a day. She has to lean Glenn against the door to sort through his pockets for keys — which takes _way_ too fucking long because his pockets are a pure state. He ends up sliding to the ground at some point, but she leaves him there until the door’s unlocked.

She manages to get him to his feet and drag him to his bedroom with some extreme effort — Glenn muttering something about a phoney deal ‘Ron’s dad’ had offered him at ‘Castle Ravenloft’ along the way — and flops him down onto his bed (on the very _wrong_ side of the bed, but hey, Del doesn’t know Glenn has a thing about not sleeping on Morgan’s side). She doesn’t bother fixing his duvet over him or anything because he doesn’t fucking deserve it, but gets two glasses of water and leaves one on his bedside table before taking the other with her back to the living room.

Nick is there watching tv. Del figured he had just left it on accidentally when he went to bed when she’d first entered the house, but he’s sitting cross-legged on the couch with open eyes. It’s pretty late for him to be awake.

She sits on the arm of the couch and looks towards the tv. She’s a little taken aback when she finds herself looking at what is quite recognisably Santa Claus.

“What’s this?” She asks.

“The Christmas Chronicles.” Nick shrugs, not reacting much to her appearance. “A modern-day classic.”

“It’s July.”

“And?”

He makes a good point. 

She doesn’t object any further and lets herself get pulled into the movie. At some point she moves from the arm of the couch to the actual couch cushions. After The Christmas Chronicle is over, The Santa Clause 2 is put on, but Nick ends up nodding off halfway through.

His head initially rests on the cushion behind him, but it rolls to the side and lands on Del’s shoulder as she’s reaching for the remote. She freezes.

Del isn’t exactly close with Nick, far from it, but she has to admit that he’s rather… endearing in his own sort of way. He reminds her so much of the way Glenn was at his age that it almost hurts. She looks down at Nick’s face — so much like Glenn’s — and wonders how a younger her had ever managed to leave behind someone like this in the first place. He was so small then, but then again, she had been too.

She gingerly takes the remote from his hands and switches off the tv. She wants to move him back to his own room, but she drifts off to sleep herself instead.

She’s glad to see Nick still asleep when she wakes up in the morning — it means he didn’t get to see her when she was sleeping and also means he doesn’t know that she’d let herself fall asleep _with_ him. 

She uncurls Nick’s arm from where it’s wrapped around her and carefully moves his head off her shoulder onto the couch cushion behind him. He stays asleep.

She finds Glenn at the dining room table. He’s asleep, head in his arms, but the fact that he’s here means he had woken up sometime during the night.

When she checks her phone, she has a text from him. It’s a photo of her and Nick on the couch. His head is on her shoulder and her head is on his, their hair twisting together. His arm has managed to wrap itself around her and his hand has a tight grip on her jacket, her own hand sits lightly on his wrist. The arms in between them are slightly entwined, her hand resting on his. Nick looks younger asleep, and so does she. She looks unguarded for once, and she hates it. But _despite_ hating everything about the photo, she finds herself smiling just a little.

_‘haha lame’_ says the text underneath.

Del regrets giving him her new number.

* * *

Nick 

“Hey, kid.” Del’s voice calls through the door.

“What?” He calls back.

“Package came for you but whatever asshole delivered it left it in a fucking puddle. Think I got it salvaged before the rain managed to seep through though.”

Nick whirs through his mind to try to figure out what package was meant to come for him today and he makes a mad rush across the room when he remembers. He yanks open the door and looks down breathless at the trans flag in Del’s arms. One corner is slightly soggy.

He’s pretty sure Del had to know he’s trans. He doesn’t pass 100% and she’s a goddamn PI. But there’s always the chance that she _doesn’t_ know or that she’s just using the right pronouns to appeal to Glenn despite what hateful beliefs she might harbour deep down. There’s a difference between not speaking about it and looking at a literal symbol of his identity.

He takes the flag from her and tries his best to search for a tell on her face that isn’t there.

Maybe she doesn’t even know what the flag means. That would be an okay scenario to be in. She’s looking at him like she expects him to say something though, so he suspects she does.

Nick feels familiar nerves creep up along the back of his neck and threaten to choke him out. He quickly pushes that down again. He didn’t need to be nervous. Nobody had earned the _right_ to make him nervous and if they were going to be a bitch about it they could hit the road.

“You’d better be cool.” Nick says pointedly. “Dad cares more about me than keeping you around.”

“Nick,” she says, “ _I’m_ trans.”

“What?”

“I’m-“

“No, I heard. I just- you are?”

“Yeah.”

“Oh.” he holds out his hand for a fistbump. “Cool.”

it takes her a moment of blank staring before she returns the fistbump. “Cool.”

* * *

One day, Del isn’t there in the morning. Then she isn’t there all day. Or the next. His dad looks annoyed but is clearly trying to hide it.

Nick finds her number on his dad’s phone and adds her to his contacts before shooting her a text.

> Del >:P 

> yo

> you gone back home?

There’s nothing for a full two days and Nick half-suspects she’s skipping out on the family again.

> Del >:P 

**Del >:P: **yeah

> bruh 

> nice goodbye asshole

**Del >:P: **I’m coming back eventually. Why the fuck would I say goodbye?

> people generally say goodbye when theyre leaving

**Del >:P: **bye then?

> ur the worst

**Del >:P: ** and you’re short, but _I_ don’t bring _that_ up in every conversation.

Nick fucking hates his stupid aunt, but he’s a little relieved that she isn’t gone for good. His dad doesn’t react much when he informs him, but Nick can tell he’s a little relieved too despite the fact that all they do is bicker with each other.

Del completely ghosts the two of them during the time that she’s gone, none of the few texts Nick has sent her way have even been opened. She does end up sending him a text just once, a month after her vanishing act. It’s a picture of a raccoon digging through garbage that she sends at 3am along with the text _‘saw this and thought of you’._

He doesn’t reply to it.

And then with no warning, two months later, Nick wakes up to the smell of pancakes and the sound of raised voices. 

He smiles.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> cw: use of the d-slur by a bi women in reference to an event by that name (d*ke march), use of the q-word by someone referring to themselves, a situation where it’s pretty clear that men are planning to take advantage of a young girl but someone intervenes.
> 
> woah,,,, second chapter?? 
> 
> I kinda awkwardly cut away from the morelli stuff into present day things? but that’s really just bc i want this to focus of family and carmen stuff would be for a future chapter about past romantic relationships. i want to keep those topics separate for clarity ig

Del never liked her dad much.

He wasn’t the worst dad possible, sure. Mostly because she tried not to give him enough attention for him to make an impact on her.

One time, he had asked her to go buy him a pack of booze from the liquor store. She was sixteen, and could only pass for eighteen at most, but she had learnt from experience the guy who worked the store didn’t give enough of a shit to care about her age.

He tossed some money at her and she replied with, “I’m a girl, by the way. You missed when I figured that out. Don’t be a dick about it.”

He had sighed at her, looking bored. “If I say ‘cool’ will you leave already?”

That pretty much set the standard for their everything. Nothing… horrendous. But it was all so apathetic. No matter how jovial he was, nothing he said ever  _ meant _ anything. He seemed to pick up that she could see right through his empty words and wouldn’t help him in any of his stupid schemes, and so, focused most of his attention on Glenn. 

Del hated how much she was like him. She looked more like him then Glenn did for starters, and while Glenn got his charm, she inherited only the worst parts of his personality. She couldn’t bring herself to give a shit about anything or stick around the house very long, and that wasn’t even to mention the substance abuse. Putting herself ahead of others and cheating people out of money came second nature to her. She rationalised that she wasn’t  _ as _ bad as him more often than she really needed to. As a teen, it was because she promised not to leave as much as Bill did when he got a solid roadie gig. Or because she took care of everything. Bill might’ve been fun, but  _ she  _ was the one taking care of Glenn. She was the one cooking and cleaning up and paying the bills. But then she  _ did _ leave. So, as an adult, it was because at least  _ she _ had the common decency not to have a kid to subject to her shit like he had.

She liked to hate Bill, but there was a small part of her that still saw him as her dad. As much as she liked to tell herself she didn’t give a shit, some fond memories lingered. The jacket she wore near everyday had been something stolen from a bandmate that he tossed her way when he found out it was too big for him in the hope she’d grown into it. She never did, it still fit too square and too loose, but she wore it nonetheless. Still wore it. She could pretend all she wanted that it hadn’t been from him, but it  _ was.  _ And yet somehow she couldn’t bring herself to get rid of it. The item of clothing that brought her comfort had been given to her by the person that made her more uncomfortable than anyone else. She couldn’t figure it out.

Most of his Christmas presents had always been shit. Del didn’t care much for material possessions, she’d rather he just give her the cash with the middle ground process that required her having to sell things she didn’t need. She herself let Glenn buy Bill’s gifts on her behalf. Getting presents for Glenn was time better spent. But Bill had bought her a bass guitar once. He just threw it her way on Boxing Day and disappeared for a week or so. She had practiced everyday with that damn thing, not really knowing why, and when he saw that she was a natural, he told her as such. She didn’t know why it sat with her like poison, but his compliments made her angry. Del didn’t _want_ his praise, it never meant anything, and it usually linked back to how good _he_ was and meant he wanted something from her. She didn’t know why she was practicing so much when she didn’t even want him to tell her she was good at it. 

Del decided a little later that she’d only practice when he wasn’t home.

She didn’t like Christine any better.

They were  _ always  _ ‘Christine’ and ‘Bill’ to her. Never ‘mom’ or ‘dad’ or ‘pops’ like Glenn. She was sure she had to have called them that when she was smaller, but she couldn’t remember a time before she referred to them by their names.

Glenn didn’t like spending time at Christine’s. He loved his mom well-enough, but the kid hated rules. In Bill’s house, Del was the lawmaker. She was pretty content with the very basics of childcare. Drown him in a bath every few days, make sure he had vegetables, tell him how stupid he was every time he fucked up bad enough to break a bone. Any other time, Bill was there to entertain him with ‘fun adventures’ like credit card fraud. 

Christine liked being the boss of her own house however. She cared a lot more about ‘being respectful’ than Del did. Glenn wasn’t allowed to smoke weed or paint his room himself or create horrific food combinations in the kitchen.

One time, Christine had forbidden him from sliding down the bannister of the stairs. She was insistent enough on it that he ended up storming to his room and slamming the door shut behind him once their argument ended.

Del suggested that she should’ve let him do it, and that he’d learn his lesson once he broke his leg. Christine didn’t seem to enjoy her suggestions very much. Most of the time, she just told Del off for ‘acting like a child’.

That pissed her off more than  _ anything _ . Del didn’t ‘act like a child’, she had been forced to act as an adult for the majority of her teenage years. She came to realise that there just wasn’t enough room in a house for two hardasses at a time, so she spent very little time at Christine’s place. When she was meant to stay there, she spent the majority of her time with ‘friends’ she barely knew. She tried her best only to be at Christine’s when everyone else was sleeping. Sometimes though, she was tired enough that she stuck around during the day too. Usually that only ended up making her more tired.

“Arabella!” Christine called out from the kitchen.

Christine was the sole family member that stuck to Del’s original chosen name, the rest had shortened it over time. Del didn’t know if she appreciated it or held it as proof of how impersonal their relationship was.

Del made her way into the kitchen, hands in her pockets the way Christine thought was unprofessional. “Hm?”

Christine gestured at the steamer basket. “I’ve got to head out. Those will be ready in five minutes, take care of it?”

“Sure.” 

Christine smiled and walked past Del without any further conversation between them. She called out a goodbye to Glenn before she left.

  
  
  
  


Del didn’t like parties much, but she attended them anyway. Was it just a means to an end to fuelling what was quickly spiralling into a full blown substance abuse problem? Sure. But her clarity on the matter wasn’t worth much, she still went regardless. If she was lucky, she could find someone to spend the night with so she wouldn’t have to go back home. 

It was at one of these parties that she met Carmen Morelli. She was being ushered across the crowded room by a pair of beefy looking boys, looking as lost as a lamb. She was very clearly drunk and the boys were very clearly not a couple of good samaritans.

Del didn’t like getting involved in other people’s business, but nonetheless, she sighed and made her way over to the group. 

She forced a small smile onto her face as she approached. “ _ There  _ you are! Jason’s been looking for you everywhere.”

All the girl managed to reply with was a short “huh?” in her direction. The boys were a bit more vocal.

“We’ve got her, no worries.” One of them said.

“Thanks for looking after her.” Del hooked Carmen’s arm around her neck and took her from the boy supporting her before he could fully realise what was going on. “I’d better get her back to her boyfriend before he gets all worked up about it.”

If there was one thing men respected over a woman’s agency, it was a woman being the property of another guy.

Indeed, this fact seemed to hold true, as some of the boys took a few steps back. Del took that as a good sign to leave and dragged the girl to another part of the house.

It was hard to get any information out of her, but Del eventually found out that the girl’s name was Carmen and she had walked here from the bus stop nearby. Which meant there wasn’t any kind of designated driver to bring her home. Del certainly didn’t trust her to take a bus home by herself.

Carmen was with it enough to give Del her home address and, after a walk and bus ride full of drunken babbling, they were outside the front door to Carmen’s house. It was a pretty basic American home, but was evidently well-cared for given the fresh paint on the fence and the neatly cut lawn.

Carmen continued chirping away about something or other as Del rang the bell, which she mostly chose to tune out. 

Del expected Carmen’s parents to be pissed off when they answered the door. Instead, they mostly looked relieved. As her father guided Carmen upstairs, her mother insisted Del come inside for coffee continuously until she reluctantly agreed.

She gestured for Del to sit down. “So what’s your name, dear?”

While Carmen’s accent had been pretty neutral, her mother was pretty clearly an Italian-American. She had a strong accent, Del liked it.

“Arabella.

She cooed as she continued to search for clean mugs in her cupboard. “Oh,  _ Arabella.  _ Beautiful name. Do people call you Arabella or is it just Bella?”

Bill and Glenn had eventually landed on Del after testing out “Belle”, “Bels, “Bella”, “Bel” and any other kind of name that wasn’t Arabella. Four syllables, she found, was simply too much for Close Boys to handle. She liked Del more than the rest, but she wasn’t especially keen to try it out in the open world just yet. She was pretty sure she passed well enough, but ‘Del’ felt distinctly masculine enough that she was concerned people would sus her out immediately if she went by it.

“Anything’s fine.”

“Well,  _ good  _ to meet you, Bella.” She turned around enough to let Del see her gesturing towards herself. “Rita.”

Rita looked expectant of an answer, so after an awkward moment of silence, Del replied, “Nice to meet you,” in return.

By the time the three mugs of coffee were poured out, Carmen’s father returned to the kitchen and helped Rita bring them over to the table. He had started to walk to his seat when Rita hit his shoulder lightly.

“ _ Marco _ ,” She scolded, “Introduce yourself to the nice young lady.”

“ _ Right.  _ Right. Of course.” He stepped towards Del and held out his hand. “Marco Morelli.”

Del stood up and took his hand in her’s. If she had learned anything from her parents, it was Christine’s insistence that politeness got you everywhere in life and Bill’s adaptability. Shaking hands  _ was  _ a polite thing to do, and it was a staple of the adult world. She was an adult and she'd act like it.

Marco chuckled as they shook hands. “Got a strong grip on you there.”

Del tried to rack her brain for an answer that wasn’t just ‘okay.’ She let go of his hand and replied, “You have to be strong to hold my brother down when you want to brush his hair.”

The two of them laughed like it was a joke, but Glenn’s hair maintenance was nothing of the sort. He was determined that not brushing his hair was a cool and viable option, and Del was sure that if you left him on his own, it would quickly make good real estate for birds.

Marco sat himself down at the opposite end of the dining table, burying his nose in a newspaper and sipping from his mug. Rita placed Del’s coffee in front of her before taking a seat beside her husband.

Del wasn’t much good at small talk, but she kept it up well enough. She tried to keep answers about herself bland and boring in the hopes that she wouldn’t be welcome very long, but the Morellis seemed to find some of her deadpanned retorts funny. 

Marco’s interest had turned back to his paper while his wife thought over a new line of conversation in a moment of silence.

She looked Del up and down a moment, in a way that felt almost analytical, before asking, “Are you one of those lesbians, Bella?”

Del was hesitant to answer. Rita seemed nice enough but you couldn’t just  _ trust  _ that people who seemed nice weren’t secretly utter pieces of shit. Still, after a moment of pause, she found she didn’t really care all that much. Being hatecrimed by some Italians could be an interesting story to tell later. If she was killed by some homophobes, she wouldn’t have to find an apartment for herself.

In truth, the answer felt complex anyway, so she replied vaguely in turn.

“If that’s what you want to call it.”

Rita lightly hit her husband’s shoulder a few times to get his attention. “Didn’t I tell you, Marco? I gotta sense for them. It’s all in the eyes.”

He turned a page of the newspaper. “Very impressive, dear.”

“You know,” Rita continued, looking back to Del, “I was at a few Dyke Marches in my time. If I weren’t tied down to this hunk here, I’d be getting  _ all _ the gals.”

Del wasn’t sure if ‘hunk’ was meant comedically or not, Marco was rather bland and unimpressive to her. 

He looked up from the paper and gave his wife a fond smile. “ _ Yes _ , Rita, I’m so very fortunate to have lucked out in marrying you with how wide your options were. You haven’t told me half a million times at all.”

“And don’t you go forgetting it!” Rita grinned at him before turning her attention to Del again. “What’s your family like?”

Del knew what she was really asking was ‘what does your family think about you being queer’?. The answer to which was ‘they don’t give a shit’. Del elected to reply with something that would avoid further conversation about them though.

“I don’t really talk to my family.”

“That’s a  _ real _ shame, darling, I’m sorry. family is the most important thing in the world, it’s sad when you've got to cut them off.” She paused only briefly. “Speaking of family, our Carmen’s a lesbian too, y’know-“

“Rita.” Marco interjected.

“ _ Whaaaat? _ I’m making friendly conversation here. Let a lady live a little.”

They insisted she spend the night in their spare room since it was getting so late by the time they finally finished talking. Del tried to refuse, but Rita was persistent and staying here felt like a better option than returning home did.

The next morning, there was a knock at the bedroom door. Del opened it to find Carmen standing there, still in pyjamas but with hair just recently done into a long braid.

“I - uh- hi! There’s breakfast downstairs, mamma-  _ ma  _ said to come get you.”

“Sure.”

Carmen didn’t make a move to go downstairs though, she looked Del over and shuffled her feet. “Also just… thank you. For helping me home? I just- yeah. Thank you! Nice to meet you properly too.”

“It’s fine.” Del brushed off, taken aback by how preppy the girl was after how drunk she’d been last night. “How are you  _ not _ hungover?”

“Oh, I have a  _ major  _ headache right now.” Carmen chirped before flexing her tiny bicep muscles and deepening her voice. “But I work through the pain.”

Carmen awkwardly put her arms back down by her sides when Del didn’t laugh. Not wanting the girl to feel too bad, Del said, “Will of iron, clearly.”

Carmen grinned. “Yeah! Super strong!” 

With her mood brightened again, Carmen led Del downstairs for breakfast. Against her better judgement, Del accepted an invitation to return to the house for dinner the next week. Then the week after that.

Del offered to help out in the kitchen a lot. She didn’t want to be getting food for nothing. Rita called her a natural and teased Carmen for being a supposed ‘curse to the kitchen’. It was all pretty generic food, but occasionally they would delve into something pretty uniquely Italian. 

One time, Carmen sidled up close to where Del was serving up food so she could grab cutlery for the table. “You know,” She began, “You should make some Chinese food sometime, Bels.”

“I don’t really-“

“Oh,  _ yes.  _ Of course! _ ”  _ Rita cut in from where she was throwing some pots into the sink to soak while they were eating. “When you’re here, this is a Chinese-Italian-American household, Bella. We should eat like it!”

Carmen gasped and whispered, “C-I-A household…” to herself like it was something profound.

Del didn’t really know any kind of Chinese recipes, but she didn’t want to be a waste of space if she was being allowed to stay here so often. “I can make dumplings, I guess?”

Both Carmen and her mother let out a little “ooh!” with equal excitement.

Del didn’t actually know a recipe for dumplings, but it was the only kind of Chinese food she could ever remember Christine making. So she looked it up during the following week and presented them at their next dinner like making dumplings had been a part of her life throughout its entirety. It almost felt dirty.

Del left home before she stopped spending time with the Morellis, but even that came to an end eventually. She was pretty confident that after her time with them, she wouldn’t get another chance to be treated like a family member ever again. That had been a pretty solid assumption up until she decided to reunite with Glenn and consequently, met her nephew. 

She didn’t intend to get attached to Nick, but the kid just grew on her like mold to bread. 

  
  


They aren’t exactly bffs by any means, but she enjoys the kid’s company. He’s very… uncomplicated. Del hasn’t had many relationships that were especially meaningful to her, but the majority of them that were had been unnecessarily messy or had just fallen apart. It’s still a little rocky, of course, but it’s a much cleaner slate to work with than she’s used to.

She decides to stay at Glenn’s house for a bit to work out some things for a client that lives nearby. It’s an easier trip to make from their place. 

Glenn himself has a couple of music lessons to cover today, so it’s just her and the kid in the house around lunchtime. Del hadn’t noticed Nick enter the kitchen, but at some point during her omelette making process, he sidles up beside her.

She continues cooking and waits for him to speak up himself. Maybe he just wants to help out.

After a moment, he asks, “You speak Chinese, right?”

She spares a glance his way. “Bits and pieces.”

“How many bits and pieces?”

She looks back to the frying pan and moves around the omelette a little so it won’t burn. “I’ve barely spoken it properly to anyone since your age. Not much.”

Nick hums, before picking up a knife she’d been using a few moments before. “What’s this?”

“That’s…” she thinks it over for a moment, trying to get the language to come back to her. It isn’t like riding a bike, like she assumed it would be. The words have grown rusty from disuse and it takes a lot of effort to get those cognitive cogs turning again. “刀, I think?”

Nick repeats the word to himself before he smiles at her and grabs a cup instead. “What about this?”

The word comes quicker to her this time. “杯子.”

He attempts to repeat. "被子.” 

Del shakes her head. "No, you’re- that’s like a blanket or something, Nick. Listen to the tone, the way my voice goes. 杯子.”

"杯子.”

She nods. "Right."

It continues like that for her entire stay. It isn’t a constant barrage of questions, but every so often he manages to grab a new piece of vocab. 

Eventually though, he picks up a candle and holds it directly in her face. Why Glenn even  _ has  _ candles she doesn’t know, candles are stupid. Del never would’ve guessed he likes them, but he also really likes hand lotion, so apparently he’s just Like That. She is determined that someone else must’ve given this particular candle to him though. No way would he have picked up a scent like ‘pinetree pathway’ on his own. Her money is on the hippy friend.

At this point, Nick doesn’t even need to ask her. She just blankly stares at the object being thrust towards her and tries her best to remember the Chinese translation.

She shrugs. “Don’t know it.”

Nick looks a little disappointed, but doesn’t say anything about it. She can’t help but feel a little guilty about disappointing him, but brushes it off quickly as being stupid. It isn’t like it’s her fault.

When Del gets home, she googles the translation before texting the characters and pinyin to Nick. He could’ve looked it up himself if he really wanted to know, but she feels satisfied after giving him the information. While she just copy-pastes the characters from the webpage, she sets up a keyboard for characters on her phone while she’s at it. He replies with the sunglasses emoji and the devil horns emoji. As effective a communication tool as any, she supposes.

When she cooks dinner that night, she finds herself naming everything she uses throughout in Chinese on repeat, hammering away the rust until the words feel natural again. She tries to convince herself that she’s just naming things out of habit at this point, too used to teaching Nick, but when she pulls out her phone to translate something she can’t remember, she comes to the realisation that she’s doing this so that she doesn’t disappoint the kid again. Since when has not disappointing someone ever been a priority for her?

It’s a few weeks later. Del is staying at her brother’s house again, purely a social call this time. Nick’s been hammering away at his laptop for a while now, but now, looks towards where she’s sitting at the other end of the table.

“Hey, Del?”

She looks up from where she’d been writing in her notebook. Usually it’s a place for collecting her observations, but the last few pages have been filled with character practice. She’d only ever spoken Chinese as a kid, never written it, so it’s completely new to her. Del has a good memory though, and doesn’t mind the repetition that comes with language learning. She should look into some audio learning resources for the hours she spends on the job doing things as boring as looking through repetitive video footage. 

She closes the book to indicate she’s listening.

He continues, “Will you look over this thing for me? It sounds stupid.”

“Can’t your dad do that?”

“No.”

She sighs and stands to her feet, making her way to his side. “What’s up?”

“I’m doing this essay about like, learning Chinese, a little. Because I’ve been learning it a bit since last time you were here? And I think it sounds like shit so far.”

Del hadn’t been aware that Nick had been looking into learning Chinese more than their impromptu vocab sessions. She pulls over a chair and pushes the laptop closer to her. “You’re doing a project about learning Chinese?”

“It’s just some stupid practice for writing personal essays or whatever... the project’s about like, something that’s important to you? So I figure if I do it about Chinese then the teacher can’t fail me without looking racist.”

She pauses. “Nick, are you using a language you barely speak to exploit the education system?”

“Yeah, basically.”

Del remembers all the times she’s started spouting broken chinese to avoid having a conversation with an approaching english-speaker and sighs. “Fair enough.”

It’s only an essay outline, a few random paragraphs written out here and there where inspiration apparently struck. It’s obviously hammed up to appeal to the kind of sentimental shit english teachers eat the fuck up, but it’s good. Nick seems a pretty talented writer from what little there is to read, Del is slightly surprised, though she really shouldn’t be. The Closes have always been artistically gifted in some form or another, lyrics writing to personal essays isn’t the biggest leap in the world.

His bullet points cover a wide variety of feelings. A disconnect from culture and the new culture that  _ stems  _ from that disconnect. Feeling weird about claiming an identity he knows next to nothing about. Not having a motivation to look into his heritage because at this point it feels like appropriating a culture that isn’t  _ actually  _ his. 

She gets to a part that mentions her, this section isn’t written out at all but the outline is there. Bullet points about how cool it is to have an actual connection to his identity through language learning, but how  _ alien _ tones feel after a lifetime of speaking purely English. How much he’s learned by himself now that he’s found a spark of motivation. There’s little written, but it’s clear that Nick looks up to her for being able to speak Chinese despite her having the vocabulary of a toddler and for being able to make passably-good dumplings. It’s weird to her, that he looks up to all this surface level shit when she herself could relate to most of what he’s written before now.

By the end of the essay, she decides that she’s going to continue learning Chinese until she’s as fucking fluent as a native speaker for Nick’s sake.

Del doesn’t say that though. She finds the parts of the essay where he’s included sentences in Chinese as examples and corrects some of his mistakes with her rudimentary knowledge.

“There,” She says. “All good.”

“Okay,” Nick replies, “but is the actual… how is it?”

It isn’t until then that Del realises Nick didn’t show her this for guidance, he showed it to express… something. She can’t quite grasp what, but she’s glad he did.

“It’s good, kid. I mean… it’s cool. I like it.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

He grins wide and snatches the laptop back. “Sick.” 

That’s the extent of the conversation as he heads to his bedroom, leaving Del alone at the dining table. 

She’s spent so long just… avoiding looking more into her own identity. It wasn’t that she didn’t  _ like  _ who she was, she just didn’t have an excuse to care. Del could  _ never _ care about things without an excuse to spur her into it. She cares about Glenn because she  _ had  _ to be his caretaker as a kid. She cares about her job because she  _ has  _ to have a way to make money. She cares about learning Chinese because Nick needs her to. She figures she’s  _ his  _ excuse too. Trying hard to impress somebody is a lot easier than trying hard ‘just because’. 

It’s nice to have an excuse. Maybe she can look into recipes other than dumplings for him too.

She goes back to her notebook, cracks it open, and takes up her pen. Carefully, below her character practice, she writes:

“To-Do List:

  * Teach the kid Chinese swear words.”




End file.
